There was a New Year's party last night I was invited to, with an interesting twist: the new year was rung in on UTC/Greenwich/Zulu time, i.e. 7pm EST. Festivities commenced at 6pm, and a few minutes before midnight Zulu, we dialed in the BBC's World Service via the web and listened on an iPad linked to a Bluetooth speaker. A year end wrap-up story concluded, the news announcer dryly mentioned that it was midnight and hence now 2024, then the bells of Big Ben chimed. Everyone toasted the new year, and the party disbanded shortly afterward. I was comfortably asleep on the sofa by 10:30, though several others were off to various other New Year's parties.
The hosts and I originally had wanted to listen in via shortwave, but the schedule out of Ascension Island's West Africa transmitter, which we can sometimes receive here, unfortunately did not cover the midnight time slot. Probably just as well. Once we started discussing what it would take to receive those signals, I don't think the hostess was all that keen on my proposal to set up a wire antenna in their front yard and run coax in through a window. Had it been possible though, it would have been very cool.
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